


Mark of Cain

by Wayward-Hunter (KirscheLeibling)



Series: Genesis [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Asylum, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Fallen Angels, Hallucinations, Insanity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:02:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirscheLeibling/pseuds/Wayward-Hunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is 30 and he has gaps in his memory years-long, and when he sleeps he dreams of--</p><p>  <strike>A tall young man with kind eyes and blood smeared across his lips.</strike> </p><p>  <strike>A man with icy blue eyes and raven wings burnt onto the sidewalk</strike></p><p>  <strike>"It was always meant to be you"</strike></p><p>-- beautiful and awful things, but it's a voice in his head that scares him the most; powerful and dark and <i>not his own</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. East of Eden

 10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

\--Genisis 4:10-16

* * *

* * *

  
**Chapter 1: East of Eden**

There isn't much he remembers, but they come to him in flashes; like some old, burnt out noir film, little glimpses of something fantastic, something supernatural. He thinks of werewolves and something called a Rougarou, of vampire nests and silver blades. He remembers someone holding him tight, holding him up as pain wracked through his entire body, while muttering, chanting.

"--too late, always too late--"

And all he could do was allow the person to hold him, cradle him, rock him, while numbly, idly thinking to himself, well, late for what?

The years after had become a blur. Too many empty faces and not enough light—there were too many people with no names, nothing behind their dead eyes. They all lacked a light, a certain flame in their being. Then—nothing. 

There was nothing, just a big black hole that sucked him in each time he tried to breach any memories, and the voices would all start up again, warning him against opening the door in his mind. They would stand up and shout all at once in warning, begging and pleading for him to go back to ignorance, to shove him into the artificial lights and keep him there with plastic wings and a tinsel halo.

But he isn’t some sort of angel. His life is strewn with darkness and blood.  He isn’t some sort of righteous being and there’s nothing that is going to clean the blood off his hand, stop the words from scrawling themselves across the eggshell white walls of his room, of his prison.

Dean Winchester is thirty years old and he’s forgotten more than he can remember. There are gaps in his memories year-long; there are voices in his head that never stop, are always whispering in his subconscious in tongues, the vernacular of the angels, in the etymology of demons. He’s trapped in a prison of his own making and imprisoned behind dreary plaster walls. He is haunted by specters of his past, by the ghouls of his memory.

Dean stares at the pristine white scrubs on his body, hanging limply off his lean limbs. The cloth is so white his eyes begin to sting; he turns away, gazes out the window instead.

The sky reminds him of memories lost, of words never spoken and a silence that was never broken. It makes him think of bitter ends and eternal life.

Too painful. Dean closes his eyes instead.

The darkness behind his closed lids is welcome, it’s familiar. The darkness calls him home and, weary, Dean follows with the minute prayer that the nightmares won’t follow.

It’s all for naught, every night. Dean is hopeless enough to wish, though. He’s foolish enough to want.

And the darkness knows. It cherishes the hopelessness and basks in the fight, but Dean is weak and tired, always tired and he succumbs every time. In a blink he is whisked away, taken by the tumultuous waves of his subconscious. 

It’s eerie, it’s painful but so very beautiful. Each image is breathtaking, each sound so crisp, only muddled by the knowledge that it’s all fabricated. Each moment is played out behind Plexiglas, behind a lens; so realistic, so familiar but not his. 

None of it is real.

The darkness shatters into thousands of cracks, a frail light seeping through the edges, past the infinitesimal incisions. Quicker now, they move, almost fluid until the darkness shifts; silver tendrils of energy separate the soft edges of feathers,

The wings expand above a dark sky. The stars all twinkle with fear, with sadness and hide behind the heavenly appendages. The wings shift and the sound that slices through the silence equates to a hundred grinding stones. Swiftly, now, they move, they fade away into the ebony canvas.

Gone forever.

A simple memory, a hallucination; a lost hope.

But it’s not over, never over, never ending. The teasing glimpses of symbols flash through his mind, always mingled with broken words and sentences that list of into infinity, that drag on into silence.

And still Dean lunges out, hand extending to the heavens. He begs for redemption, for help but the stars turn away. They slowly extinguish, leaving a mocking crescent moon to light the darkness with its jaunting sneer.

Dean is alone, though, and not even the sickly yellow glow of the moon can help him see. In this sea of uncertainty, he is blind.

_“—even without wings you can not fly--”_

The sky stretches on endlessly, a gaping void of desolateness. So bleak and beautiful, a canvas of navy and death it surges forward and clutches Dean in its suffocating grasp. Dean’s hand is pale in comparison, and almost skeletal. The limb shivers in the empty space, twitches inwards. He wants to cry out but can’t, the air is stolen from his lungs and he hears them again, the familiar timbre of his own voice fused with something else, something powerful; something terrifying.

His hand shivers. The air tightens around Dean’s prone form. Even in his mind his eyes are closing, he’s losing the battle. He looks at his hand, the limb with a mind of its own and thinks, numbly, to himself, “ _At least if I’m sinking back into my mind, into the pit of despair and insanity, at least if I’m falling, I’ll be reaching as I fall”_.

Falling is much like flying. The only difference is that when you’re falling you know where you’ll end up. Actually, falling is more like dying. It’s a process, not an event. It’s a showcase, it’s a production. Three, two, one; Lights, camera, action.

Flash!

The bright light dies out quickly. The scene looks like an old, abused polaroid picture with too much sun exposure, the black turning into brown and the corners are torn and dyed. There’s a heartbeat monitor besides a hospital bed that rings with the feeble life that holds on stubbornly to the rotting tethers of a frail body. 

Dean smells the poignant stench of anesthetics in the air, a nauseating concoction of blood, urine and saline. The bed is empty—- _no_ , there’s someone there. The figure beneath the scratchy material is blurred with black smudged eye sockets and a bandaged head. The machine fills the silence between each heartbeat with a constant _drip, drip, drip_ into tubes attached to the body.

For a second, the eyes turn into a familiar, heartbreaking blue, then hazel and he’s suddenly looking straight at his father from across a hospital bed.

“ _I told you to take care of your brother, Dean”_

No. This isn’t right. Dean backtracks, shuts his eyes and takes a step back. Inhale; exhale. Dean reclaims his previous positions, opens his eyes.

It’s him, it’s Dean at five, seventeen, twenty-six (and "dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days.") all the way to who he has become, who he is now and somehow it makes perfect sense, seeing himself lying prone on that cot. Too young and too old altogether; so naïve and such a dreamer; too optimistic to be a pessimist but too morose to be happy; yes, it’s all coming back—

_“You promised”_ Dean hears and the dying version of himself winces in the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Dean mutters and he’s falling again, the scene is bleeding all colors right through, and everything is gray, it’s black and white and nothing is okay, nothing is alright; it’s a cold winter night and death is waiting at his bedside, awaiting a final moment that will never come, that well never happen but that’s not—that’s not what plagues Dean’s mind. The sudden inexplicable feeling that he is utterly and completely alone weighted by guilt cripples him.

“ _It was always meant to be you”_

Flashes now, in the darkness; they come quicker, last only seconds like the flash of a camera with meaningless words, empty images, people with no eyes and no names.

“ _I have this under control”_ Sam lies.

A smile marred by tears.

_“I do this for you!”_

Apologies. Promises. A silent prayer to dead deities; pleading cries in the dead of night.

The image of a woman on snowy pavement comes to light. Her lips are a bright, fiery red, eyes dead cinders with cold, gray skin; the crimson pool she lays in spreads.

_“I’m sorry”_

A mantra. A plea.

Beautiful, glazed raven wings in the night—watch the wings scatter and burn. Feel each fiber and molecule sizzle into the concrete slabs of the sidewalk. 

There is nothing here but death and pitiful cowardice.

“Are you proud?” Dean hears himself responding. His body shivers with dread. It’s so familiar but so wrong, like a nightmare and this is it, just a dream, a dark figment of his corrupted imagination but it feels so real, he can almost taste the resignation on his tongue, can almost smell the copper in the air, the thick restraints of darkness around his wrists.

Dean shuts his eyes but this new level of sleep, of terror is everywhere, gripping him tightly in its intangible grasp. No way out; he’s trapped, always trapped and never in control, nothing he can do to move, to get out, nothing to say but—

_“—Kill me!”_

—he’s sorry, for the blood that never seems to wash off his hands, the ruby glimpses that haunt his every day and night. There’s nothing to say about the sky or the stars, nothing to tell the empty silhouettes, nothing he can possibly confess to the dead.

There is nothing but a broken man that’s prisoner in a pristine, cotton cell and an even worse hell of his own making.

All there is are sobs and cries and two pills he will never remember, never actually remembers, that can take it all away; two small angels that sit innocuously with a paper cup on a chrome tray atop the nightstand.

He’s awake.

It’s lights out.

One, two.

Swallow. Sigh. Choke. Sob.

_Goodnight._

A soft voice echoes into the empty hallway, low and abused. It’s a plea, a prayer and a benediction wrapped together with remorse. It’s pious blasphemy, alive in the dead of night.

“I’m sorry; I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry…” A saintly prayer from sinner’s lips, redemption and damnation bound by impeccable human regrets it’s repeated, chanted in this bitter cold room. The words are taken from his breath and die as they surge forward. Dean’s eyes close slowly, lips moving with silent litanies that end suddenly. 

* * *

It doesn’t end until the morning rounds. At eight o’clock sharp the fluorescent lights flicker on, bright and stinging. Dean doesn’t know if there are more nurses that do their rounds with the other patients, but he’s particularly familiar with the black-haired nurse that always takes care of him. She had once told Dean that her name was Meg, though he had heard a few careless voices drift into his room with sharper syllables, something like "Akem" but it was too faint to tell. 

Other than Meg, though, Dean doesn’t really see many nurses milling about. He has seen some of the other patients, though; he has seen them with face-splitting, inhuman grins, has glimpsed their all-black eyes and seen some, many, flinch with his appearance. Still, this is a mental hospital. They aren’t stuck in there with Dean; they all belong here. 

“Monin’, Dean.” Meg’s voice drifts through the click of the door opening. Dean groans deep in his throat before blearily opening his hazy eyes. Meg walks in with her white scrubs rustling together with each step; her manicured hands place a tray with food on the nightstand and Dean follows the length of the limbs to the nurse’s smug, teasing veneer.

Her eyes are pitch black, like ink spilled across the sclera, across the blank, milky canvas of normal eyes. Dean sighs, blinks. Meg continues placing the tray on the stand and hurries to close the curtains, small heels click-clacking on the cold floor.

“I heard you started talking to someone yesterday, another patient.” Meg dawdles, a sly grin spreading sickly across her creamy features. Her eyes are a dull dark brown now, full of mirth and something a little wicked. She runs a small hand through her long, raven hair as she trapezes around the room. “That’s good—great, actually. Now, If I could get you to take your meds, we might actually start to see some progress!” 

The nurse rattles a thin paper cup and two small pills likewise reply. 

Dean frowns as he sits up, nursing a throbbing head and tasting mounds of cotton on his tongue. The stale taste of medication and bile is hard to ignore as he tries to remember the previous night.

“You have a free day, Mister Winchester, but just remember,” Meg winks as she holds the door frame,” lunch is at three. Also, Doc Loptr and you have your little pow-wow next Thursday, two o’clock sharp; I’m going to swing by and escort you so be in your room again before that, yes?”

“You know,” Dean starts and is startled by the gruff, worn-out edge to his voice,” aren’t you s’pposed to be more, ya’ know, watchful?”

“I dunno, have something to hide?” comes Meg’s response from across the shutting door.

Dean takes a moment to ponder that.

See, Dean isn’t anti-social and his lack of socialization has nothing to do with any mental affliction. The fact that he started speaking to someone in any sense is astounding; typically the people around the halls and in the day room are all silent, catatonic or speaking to themselves and to people only they can see. It’s not that, though—schizoid personality disorder, hallucinations, a mild form of PTSD, schizophrenia and anterograde amnesia. If Dean could explain all of this in simpler terms, he’d say that he doesn’t care enough, he spaces out and hallucinates with random tasks or sounds, sees and hears things that don’t exist and can’t remember years of his life.

Dean has never said that he doesn’t belong here. 

The previous day had been a surprise. Dean had traveled out of his room and walked down the hallway, staring at nothing until his own legs led him towards the day room; he bypassed the brightly lit room and took a left instead, coming to a dead-end. Instead of turning back, though, Dean had found himself strolling towards the wall, sliding down and sitting against it with his legs splayed out before him.

"H-Hello?” A small, hushed voice whispered and Dean's heart stepped up a beat, fear sending him into immediate paranoia. The stubby hallway was still empty; not a single soul was in sight.

“Uh, anyone here?” Dean called out and waited a few seconds until he started to feel silly. Of course no one would reply; there was no one to reply. “Of course not. It’s just another--”

“You sound… familiar.” Dean jumps again, surprised at how familiar, how close the voice is. “How did you find me? Who are you?”

They talk for a few more seconds, not exchanging names but little bits of information. That’s how Dean comes to meet and know someone that called “Rem”, a nickname Rem says is from the nurses and other patients. “It's a very harsh nickname of Remiel,” Rem explains, and then ontinues to speak about the nickname bearing no realtions to his true name. Dean flounders a bit at the information and the strange name and sprouts out “dad was sort of a religious nut, huh?” and the low whispered “yes” is a little broken, a little melancholy. 

Dean had spent the rest of the hour just rambling anything that came to mind and left with the promise to return. 

Within his week off, Dean has come to know Rem better than he knows himself. A part of him is thrilled while the other part—the darker, gangrenous zones of his inner most self, itches with the need to see the patient. It’s been a benevolent week with hardly any other interaction between himself and other patients or nurses; Meg comes by every morning with her smile more strained than it was before. Other than conversation topics and the nurse’s jitteriness nothing has changed. 

Thursday, Sunday, Monday—the days all blend together into something dull, so monotonous Dean thinks it’s what will truly push him off the precipice. This is why the patients remain insane.

But today is Wednesday, and tomorrow is going to bring a great change, a great wave of questions and seeing Rem is going to have to wait. Dean can do it. He can feel this coming storm like a buzzing beneath his skin and it’s so potent he can taste it, can feel it in the fiber of his very being.

It’s Wednesday and Thursdays have always been special. 

It’s Wednesday and Dean can’t think. He can’t breathe and it feels like he’s going to have a panic attack but his lungs expand and contract with air, his heart remains steady. Dean shuts his eyes and reopens them to study the room. 

The walls are a bland, droll eggshell-white but if Dean blinks long enough he can see the familiar yet curiously foreign marks etched upon the pain in a dark, flaky scarlet. Sometimes he swears it’s an entirely different language—something far older than Latin, much more archaic. If he closes his eyes and calms his frayed nerves the symbols become words from a deep, gravelly voice. Something only the wind could whisper, something only the trees would understand.

But something else is going on here. It’s impossible to calm down and relax long enough to let the symbols come to life. A nervous tingle runs down his spine like a worn and battle-edged instinct is calling him out.

Its shouting “you’re not safe; don’t let your guard down.”

So Dean doesn’t. He stares at the wall, remains mute as the silence grows longer, thinner. The symbols sprawl across the boring white and ooze away into nothingness. An old clock tick-tocks life away as the three hands continue their immortal rounds.

“Hello” Meg intrudes and he resists the urge to roll his eyes. The door closes with a silent click and the nurse continues on her path. “Heard ‘round the grapevine you didn’t go out to see your friend Rem today. Lover’s spat?”

Dean feels a stuborn streak raise it's childish head at the comment and remains silent. Where Meg would tease and make more sardoninc comments, there is silence. Meg looks solemn, though, stern in a way he has never seen her before. 

“That’s great, but you were making so much progress. It’d make recovery faster and easier on you.” She places the chrome tray on the nightstand on top of his notebook and glances at the hard gaze.

“Ya’ know, sometimes I think you do remember just who you are,” Meg sighs as Dean’s eyes go hazy, a glazed far-off look replacing the fiery glint, “but it leaves you just a quickly.”

He jerks his head away from the Meg's unwelcome scrutiny and looks at the slither of wall space between the window and the crease of the next wall. A symbol appears with thick black lines and a circle ringing it all together, symbols scrawled between the circle and the thinner strokes. ‘Protection’, a voice says in his mind, ‘from people like her.’

The nurse stills behind him and the patient chances a glance at the black haired woman. Meg’s usually bored and uninterested features are pale and drawn tight in something akin to panic as she stares at the spot he had been looking at. Her lips purse as if she wants to speak but is holding back.

The black marker symbol eventually begins to bleed though the wall. The star melts into an intelligible Rorschach and the nurse relax behind him.

Dean thinks the smudges look like drooping black wings, each drip of the sludge resembling fallen feathers. He snorts.

The thought makes him want to smile and scream all at once. He closes his eyes until the images fade into oblivion. He breaths in, exhales and wills the terse muscles in his back to relax. The nurse says something under her breath and shatters his trance-like state.

“Call for… Manah. Nurse--” The static call of the hospital line shatters the lingering silence building in the room.

“Ten-four.” The nurse murmurs into the device in a clipped tome. She rolls her eyes and settles her steely gaze back on the terse patient. “Well I hope you start feeling sociable again and please—take your meds tonight.” With a tight smile she goes, heels leaving behind a click-clack that echoes even after she’s long gone.

Outside the night is settling comfortably on the building, nestling in the grass and trees in heaps of shadow. From this arrangement Dean can see the full moon shining dutifully over the abysmal sky, a beacon in the darkness. In the recesses of his mind he hears a howl and a flurry of images arise in his mind’s eye: silver blades, bleeding eyes, a sawed-off shotgun; rosary beads, a cross and a son, a brother.

‘Protect’, the voice in his head whispers. ‘Tools. Weapons. Protection.’ But the images all fade away into silence.

Dean turns and hefts himself up on shaky arms higher on the lumpy bed. Hauling his legs over the edge of the mattress, he lays motionless over the thin covers, staring blankly at the ceiling. He turns his head and looks at the tray with muted disdain, eyes following the softly melded contours of the tray up to the paper cup of water and the subsequently smaller paper cup beside it. The light splays the shadows of the pills against the thin parcel container.

Dean lets out his breath, turns his head forward and closes his eyes. He ignores the images—memories this time of patients with sadistic grins, black wings and nurses with all-black eyes. Instead, Dean opens his eyes and gazes out the window into the dark night, the dim stars drowning in the celestial void and the moon, no beacon or savior, sits upon its thrown in resigned poise.

“Hunter's Moon” another voice pipes up, kinder than the other; wiser yet more naïve. “That’s the Hunter's Moon.”

Dean ignores the irony, the pang of pain that whispers ‘that's ours’ with a sense of pride and stinging loss.

It makes more sense when he doesn’t think about it.

The moon eventually begins to shift. Its pale yellow-white glow ebbs as a thick scarlet begins to ooze from the black sky. It bleeds over the clarity and falls in a steady drip through the infinite sky. The stars all call out, twinkle their fading pleas until they, too, are overtaken by the sickening goop.

_“Help me”_ they cry. _“Save us”_

But he isn’t a hero, not a hunter or detective or vigilante and most definitely not a savior. He’s nothing, no one. Not anymore.

_“Save him,”_ one star whispers. _“We are old relics but he can change the world. We are just characters from old, forgotten lore. Save him as long as he wants saving and He… can save you”_

But the crimson sludge soon thickens. The sky bleeds black and life is extinguished. Silence.

Infinite silence and celestial death.

“Hunter's Moon,” The kind voice huffs, “that’s a thing of legends.”

~~_“You know, we met on a Thursday—“_~~

It’s Mid-November, with snow so white it hurts your eyes. Lights dance across rooftops. Feet crunch brisk snow beneath worn soles as a symphony of voices speak together. ‘Do they know what they celebrate? Foolish humans. Bent on restricting life, not living it.’ Gifts. Boxes in every color and design. Yet they waste Father’s gift’.

~~_“—He died on a Thursday, too.”_~~

He sees the body on the bed again. The heart monitor rises and falls like a metronome.

_Beep._

_Beep._

Darkness. So still. But there’s always something waiting there. There’s always something there.

_Beep._

_Beep._

All those stories are true. People just refuse to see the truth behind the legend, the life behind the religion.

_Beep._

_Beep._

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Now.

                                 Open your

                                                                                 Eyes.

It’s so warm in here in the silence, though. So peaceful. **There’s something in the shadows**. Don’t look. Don’t look into their dead black eyes. ~~ _So blue, so clear and blue. Why do you look at me like that? So full of hurt and betrayal…?_~~

_Beeee—_  

“Look at me.” Dean says and his mouth is moving but suddenly it’s his father’s voice, so accusing. “I do this for you.” 

Dean coughs, lunges at the still figure on the bed. There’s no heartbeat.

“I did all of this for you.” Dean chokes out. “Are you proud of me? Glad?” And in his head it replays, his voice cracking over and over with the single wish, the single blasphemy. ‘You were dead. They said—‘

“I do this for you. The both of you,” his father whispers through blood. A silver blade clatters to the ground.

“Are you proud of me now?” Dean asks. 

“Yes” The darkness replies with a familiar voice, a face so close to his memory, so recognizable but completely foreign.

“Save me” Dean pleads.

The darkness changes into shadows of black and crimson. **Look at me** , the void taunts. **Come in. We have missed you. He’s waiting for you. ‘Save me’ he says, as if he has forgotten that you’re the one to condemn him here.**

**We’ve missed you.**

And suddenly the void is materialized in the center of a dead field. No longer wisps of dead cosmic energy, it gapes larger, colder despite the simmering crimson flames flickering in the darkness. The hospital bed is gone. He’s not trapped in a ward anymore. He’s here, in the cemetery with angel statues weeping for him, tears he will never shed.

All because Dean is paying the price for a millennium’s worth of sin, for the blood upon his hands, for the unjust, untimely ends. And he would weep over the graves if he knew that they had existed, this missing silhouette, this empty shadow in his life that’s been plucked out so carelessly it leaves Dean numb and wanting.

He would never sleep again but Dean is not a strong man. He hears a voice from far away, cold and clinical. _“Call it in, time of death is Thursday, December--”_ And Dean would whisper gently in the dead’s ear while staring with the other’s heavenly glory. He’d drop to his knees in their fatal confessional, whisper to the silence-                

_“I’m sorry”_

There’s blood on the walls of the hallway. There’s blood on Dean’s hands. His mind is numb, his vision clouded; he doesn’t understand. 

“Goodbye” Dean says and he doesn’t, he wants to take it back; it’s too final, too resolute and that’s not what he wants he wants them to make it through, he wants them to _live_.

“ _ **The sky bleeds for you. The heavens mourn. This isn’t your time.”**_ Whispers the heavens and Dean whimpers, flinches. 

_“But—“_

“ ** _You’ve lost yourself. Find your path. You two transcend the laws of your world and ours. Father needs you two together but is bound by the laws of the universe.”_**

_“Father?”_

A bloody blade. Bleeding eyes. Pained hiccups. A gun.

~~_“Take care of Sammy"_~~

Choking on his own blood, Dean doubles over, right on the precipice of the void. “You can’t breathe. Reach out to the heavens. On your knees, dying—pray. Pray.” The void jeers.

“I did all of this for you. Look at me. I did this for you.” Dean grits out.

Why did you say goodbye?

**“Now find yourself”** , the void mocks. “ **Always so loyal. On your knees, choking on your own blood, your own regrets. Do you pray, boy? Do you _burn_ , boy?”**

“We’ll do this, our way” Sam promises and Dean knows, in his heart of hearts, that it’s not true. Nothing is ever in control. 5, 17, 26; he’s always too young, with the power in the palm of his hand but never truly his to use.  Unobtainable even when it’s in his grasp.

Breathe in.

_\---eeeeeee-----_

_“I’m sorry”_

Breathe out

_\---eeeeeee----_

Sputtering. Dying.

Dying. Finally. 

“He died on a Thursday,” Dean says to the silence, to the shadows.            

The stars are black, the fires burn cold. The moon laughs mockingly, an orb of dimpled, glowing death. The clouds decay. The day has come and gone. The battle is won but the war is lost; the cities are on fire and the air is polluted with the stench of burnt flesh and the iridescent glow of the infernos and the blood of the deceased.

A man sits alone on a hill overlooking the mass grave. In his hands he thumbs a worn out notebook, spine gnarled, pages torn. Eyes scan the pages, but don't see; he hears but cannot listen to the screaming cities. 

“Dean,” a voice chokes out, “why..?”

“I thought you were dead,” Dean whispers into the journal. “They said—”

* * *

 

“Good morning, Dean.” Meg chirps as she throws open the door. Dean’s eyes snap open and he flings an arm over his nightstand, just above the bulging journal and the tray of medication from the night before topples to the floor. “Oh, well then,” Meg’s smile is strained as she hustles towards the nightstand,“ not a good morning. I have to clean this so go and eat your breakfast in the day room.”

“Uh--” Dean starts but hesitates at his nurse’s pitch-black glare. “Okay, er, yes ma’am.” Dean stutters, taking the breakfast tray with him as he scurries out to the day room.

After finishing up his gruel and toast, Dean admits to himself that he’s well and truly bored. There’s something he needs to do, like an itch under his skin that can’t be scratched and its getting progressively worse. Cabin fever, he thinks to himself, most probably.  He’s in the sitting room with a few other patients, some of them beyond this plane of reality and in their own worlds. A few of them look at him with something close to fear and he can’t help but nod as the darker voice in his head speaks.

‘They can see your true power, and they’re afraid’ it whispers urgently, dark and proud.  ‘But you have forsaken it all’ 

Dean, for the first time, feels true fear at the voice, the hint of something akin to fury underlying the strange words. Slowly, the distress begins to turn into resentment—who is he to be talked down to by a _voice in his head, really_ , and then it morphs into anger, pure anger so potent it seems to burst from his pores.

He needs, he needs to do _something_ , get his coat, get in the _impala_ and get away or find some well-deserving monsters and _destroy_ them until there’s nothing left to return to hell. Only, he’s stuck here, and the monsters are all in his head. He wishes that someone knew his was here, that someone would visit but the nurses told him that he didn’t have family, only an old, forgotten cemetery they don’t know the address to.

“And my brother?” Dean thinks but wisely remains quiet. “What happened to him?”

Family.

It’s odd to think of the word, Dean muses as he stretches his arms behind his neck and relaxes his back. In one sense he pictures a blonde woman humming to herself as she cooks, a worn man with a book, two cowering boys stuck in a cheap motel. In another thinks of a tall young man with long hair and kind eyes, an older man in plaid and a trucker hat, a blonde girl and her tough mother, and a humanoid shape with a thousand faces and identities, black wings and icy blue eyes.

The last thing he thinks of is a bright place filled of life and grace, hundreds of brothers and sisters. 

This one is always the faintest memory, though, so it must be fake.

“ _Michael_ ” One of them whisper into Dean’s ear and he shudders at the airy feel of breath against his neck. _“Please, what is righteous about your march? Our brother has fallen once more and is locked away forever—return the vessel. Let him mourn in peace!”_

_“I’m sorry, little brother, but there is much work to be done. This is not over”_

_“It was over when you vanquished Lucifer!”_

“IT IS OVER WHEN I SAY IT IS!”  Dean shouts and some of the patients look at him in both fear and awe while others ignore his roar completely. Filled with shame and horror at his outburst, Dean gets up quickly and heads into the hallway to get back to his room. Dizzy with something that spots his vision in black blotches, he tumbles through the hall into someone’s arms.

“Calm down there, Dean.” A nurse idly comments as she rights the patient back on his feet. “Wouldn’t want you to bump your head and smite some of the patients, would we?

_“If you smite the demon within the body then the human will wither and die with them”_ A droll voice warns him. _“That will kill the vessel and the demon”_

_“If they are filthy enough to be taken by a tainted creature then perhaps it is for the best that they do not live”_ he replies.

Dean pales and murmurs something to the nurse and then hobbles his way to his room, opening the door and collapsing in a heap. His body is utterly drained of all energy and he feels something begin to leak from his nose as his eyes slide shut.

“I don't want you trying to bring me back. I want you to have a normal life-- find Lisa, Dean” The tall one says, and he looks so earnest, so hopefull--

“I’m not liking this idea—” Dean starts.

“—Dean--”

“But you want to do this. So I’ll try my best to help you” Dean continues and the expression on the familiar stranger’s face falls.It's a paralell, again, and it's changing from long brown hair to messy dark hair, to icy blue eyes and stbble and--

The man lets out a huff of air that, to anyone else, would be a sad sigh but Dean isn’t anyone else. He’s used to the other’s nuances, his quirks and is too in-tune with the man to not know it’s a sigh of relief.

“If push comes to shove, you find Gabriel.” The man says. ("Find Lisa, and settle down" the other says. Dean has never been too good at listening to other's orders.)

“Don’t worry, okay?” Dean grins. “I’ve got this under control”

_But the flashes of blood and bones flit through his mind’s eye._

The situation is under control.

Under everyone

          Else’s

                     Control.

He feels himself take a seat behind a powerhouse and he pushes his brother into the pit, into damnation.  _It's like being chained to a comet--_

**“NO!”** Dean shouts.

“ _It’s what is meant to happen”_ the brother soothes.

We are family. We’re salvation, damnation; redemption and deterioration. We are human; we’re sinners and saints, exterminators and creaters. Soldiers and medics. We are infinite. Mortal. Dying and living.

Wake up and smell the roses.

Smell the putrid stench of rot.

See the light pour from their very eyes. Feel the soul as it is breathed out in choked, bloody gasps and take pleasure in those that choke in the thick, rancid smoke of sin and filth. This is yours. This, all of this beneath your thumb and at your service.

_“I do this all for you!” they shout and the heavens cry tears of blood for them. Pitiful, lost creatures. Perhaps the most lost of all—_

“ _You have to fight him!”_ So familiar. It’ Dean's lost piece, his missing link (but he's so broken there may be more missing).

_“And you have lost the right to speak to me! YOU ARE DEAD!”_

_“Fight, please, you promised--”_

_“C-Cas... Castiel?"_

_“Dean!?”_

_“Kill… me.”_

Savior and Slayer. Lover and Betrayer. Will death bring you new life? Purified by the blood of the innocent. Darkness calls out to those with the most light.

**Dean Winchester** , the pit mocks, **Do you pray at night?**

You are lost. Even with wings you cannot soar, even with the key you are trapped.

Look up into the eyes of heaven. What say, you?

_“I’ve lost the fight. I’ve killed. Kill me, or he’ll take over and kill you”_

Redemption.

_“This is something you cannot ask of me!”_

Sinner.

_“KILL ME!”_

Infinite.

One loses his grace and the other loses his mind.

_It smells like roses._

_Roses and Death._

The road to Perdition is painted by innocence and ignorance. Did he find you or had you called out to him all along? A name you were never meant to remember.

_“It was always meant to be you” says the angel with a thousand wings and faces; a thousand lies and hundreds of identities that have become him, that have betrayed him. “It was your father, and now it has fallen to you. The son loyal to an absent father and the rebellious son. It's you two, boys._

_(_ You claimed we’d find another way.)

_“DO IT! KILL. ME._

_(_ You _promised.)_

Black wings sizzle and burn in holy fire, the one with the feathers of fire cries out to the brothers that have abandoned him. Why have you forsaken me?

Sadistic, benevolent: family. They turn their backs on him. The one that slayed the fallen. The one that fell.

Weak, pitiful.

The brightest of them all, the strongest.

He lost his path at the crossroads and all the demons licked their chops. 

The road to hell is paved by the seemingly righteous.

He is the righteous son.

“ _I’m sorry_ ” like a mantra at the grave of each victim, some of them brothers, others are silently slayed innocent, weak little monkeys that were taken for a joy ride.

Dean thinks he can recognize some but then he’s shoved back into his mind.

_“I did all of this for you” he says, an accusation. ”Are you proud?” Taunting. Jeering._

_This is not you_ , the dead whisper. _You said it was under control, you promised_

_“It was always under control. Their control,” Dean corrects._

Words, like crystal, shatter as they make impact. Tiny meaningless debris where they hit their marks. Some, like daggers, injur, incapacitate. Others are matches thrown into a blaze.

**Pray,** the pit commands **and see who comes. See if anyone listens**

The dead come alive. Their eyes shine with malevolence as they sink their swords into his stomach. To lose you grace is life, creation. To lose your mind is freedom, free-will. And in the end, that’s what they’re all about, right?

Two brothers get caught at a cross road. 

One path is paved in blood and righteousness, the other in grace and sin.

The demons flutter their wings. The angels lick their lips.

Two brothers are stuck at the crossroads.

The road to perdition beckons.

The way to heaven shivers. 

No way home; choose.

The road to hell is paved in silver, silver and the pleas of the righteous.

The second road is dyed in crimson.

Two brothers are stuck at the crossroads.

Both angelic. Both mortal.

Have you ever lost you mind? Liberation. Sinner and Salvation. Mortal. You were weak and that’s why he died. That’s why you still live.

Two brothers meet in the dark, exchanging words that are written in blood and bound together by righteous flesh; A new bible. It’s a late December night. Somewhere, there is an angel being put to rest. Did he go to heaven? Had he fallen to the pits of hell?

_“You said you had it under control”_

~~_I thought you were dead._~~

Damnation.

**_“You promised”_**

We are infinite. We are the sky, the stars. We are the moon and the sun. The alpha and the omega. We are… weak. We are strong. We are the wind and the earth. We are foolish. We are redemption and damnation. Salvation and deterioration; knowledgeable and ignorant. Soldiers and healers. We create and we destroy. 

We are the loyal sons. We are the morning star. We are—

~~_“I love you, Dean”_~~

We are nothing but madness wrapped up in logic. We are—

“ _Goodbye”_

We are the beginning and he end. We are—

_“You will suffer!"_

We are—

_“Madness is payment. Your grace is the trade”_

We are—

_“Then so be it”_

_**We—**_

_“Defection to humanity is far worse a punishment than death”_

We are the sinners and the saints. We are the loyal soldiers and the rebellious sons. We are nothing and everything. We are the past and the future. We are death and life.

We are infinite. 

We are constrained.

~~_“There is something much worse than death and humanity, Brother.”_~~

~~_“And what is that?”_~~

~~_“The painful fall from grace.”_~~

We are the silent sentinels of righteousness. We are the long forgotten soldiers of the endless war. Sinners and saints. Redemption. Damnation.

_It smells like roses_ , He says to the darkness, _roses and death_

The road to hell is paved by those that slay in the name of righteousness

~~_“Goodbye”_~~

~~_“It was always meant to be you”_~~

But he has to do this, not for himself but for—

“Don't try to bring me back”

“I’m not liking this idea—” But he’ll agree because it’s what the stranger needs. It’s what is mean to happen.

“—Dean--”

“But you want to do this. So I’ll try my best to help you”

It’s late Thursday night and somewhere there’s an angel that is put to rest. The heavens weep frozen tears, crystalized mourning.

 “—Dean--”

“But you want to do this. So I’ll try my best to help you” Dean continues and the expression on the familiar stranger’s face falls. The man lets out a huff of air that, to anyone else, would be a sad sigh but Dean isn’t anyone else. He’s used to the other’s nuances, his quirks and is too in-tune with the man to not know it’s a sigh of relief.

“If push comes to shove, you find Gabriel.” The man continues.

“Don’t worry, okay?” Dean grins. “I’ve got this under control”

* * *

When Dean tries to get up his body is heavy, like he’s being tied down by four hundred pound weights. He’s tucked into his bed and the nurse with the all-black eyes is dabbing a wet towel to his face.

“You collapsed” Meg explains offhandedly, wringing out the towel in a bowl beside the nightstand, “and your nose was bleeding heavily so I got someone to help me put you up here and now I’m cleaning off the blood.”

It explains the lax feeling in his body and his thrumming headache. Dean slowly murmurs something that sounds like an airy ‘okay’ and the nurse continues for a few more seconds in peaceful silence. Dean closes his eyes and rubs his temple; the nurse asks him if he feels alright.

“M’head hurts is all” Dean mumbles and Meg nods in understanding.

“You took quiet a fall, collapsed just three steps after the doorway” she points out and Dean groans. “I don’t think I can give you any form of med for that, oddly enough, but there’s a cup of water on the nightstand and lunch in about thirty minutes so take your time, Dean-O.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Dean groans as he sits up, placing his head on the palm of his hand. 

The half hour is spent wondering about the pseudo-dream and staring at the journal until Meg comes in with his lunch. He eats slowly, right hand twitching towards the notebook and the nurse smiles from the doorway. She says something that could be “down, boy” but from far it sounds like something in a completely foreign language.

An hour passes after his awakening. Dean contemplates opening the notebook before grabbing it and slipping the worn-out thing under his pillow. Lunch finished and done with, he lies across his bed and stares at the ceiling, picks at the thread of his blanket and sighs.

All of the days here mingle together in an amorphous blob of weary evenings and restless nights; his visions are getting worse, too and he has his psychologist appointment later today. Dean's mind still races, lively through the day but his body is weary, quitting on him without the mind’s accord. He groans as his heavy limbs twitch into comfortable positions.

His body feels like it’s flying and, he thinks to himself, well  isn’t that something? The sensation of air rushing through his body like a current, ruffling his hair, gliding through feathers.

But it’s all wishful thinking. Humans don’t fly, patients don’t choke out black smoke and nurses don’t have all-black eyes. 

It’s all in his head.

“There’s a reason you’re in here,” Dean says to himself,” maybe this is why?”

He must have been thinking to himself for quite a while because the next thing he knows the nurse that’s always lounging around his ward enters. She’s cleaned up from Dean’s little nosebleed and smells of disinfectant and something rank. He sees her eyes flash all black and shudders.

“C’mon, Dean-O,” Meg says with a sigh, inspecting her nails,” Doctor Loptr wants to see you.”

Doctor Loptr is a clean cut kind of guy; he’s forty something but looks ancient with doctor’s scrubs over his prim black slacks and black dress coat; despite the meticulous grooming of his balding white hair and goatee, the poor bastard never manages to get his tie right. Still, he treats Dean with respect and doesn’t go for the whole ‘your troubles are a product of society and the hostile environment blah blah blah pity pity, not your fault, you can get better’ routine and is pretty up-front and frank about everything.

“I heard you started talking to another patient,” Loptr says as soon as Dean enters the doorway. He doesn’t look up from the files on his desk and doesn’t even point to the chair across his desk to Dean. The man takes the seat anyway before responding.

“Well, sort of?” Dean pauses. “We talked through the wall, it’s gotta’ pretty big crack in it and we just… talked.” Dean shrugs. There’s no use in lying to the old bastard, anyway.

“That’s great. We were waiting to see when you would start opening up, it’s probably good for your memory loss. Any breakthrough with your dreams?”

“Just the same thing over and over again.” He doesn’t mention the new name, doesn’t mention the unfathomable strength of the images and word he hears in his dreams. “They’re not getting any clearer.”

“Sometimes it’s not that the dreams aren’t clear,” Loptr says, looking up from his files with a knowing glint in his honey brown eyes,” we simply do not attune ourselves to our subconscious’ wavelength, so to speak. You just need to stop trying to read into what they mean and let them flourish.”

“Easy for him to say”, Dean thinks bitterly, “he doesn’t see what I see.”

“Anyway, you can go back to your room now.” Loptr waves his hand in dismissal. “I hope you continue your interactions with the patient, going over his file it seems like he can use the socialization, as well. We’re planning to move him in a month but the fact that he seems more placid after his week in solitary seems to confirm my notion to move him faster.”

Dean pauses, halfway out of his seat and chances a glance at the folder spewing its contents across the Doctor’s desk. Loptr looks up at Dean’s questioning gaze and huffs out a breath.

“I’m not making changes to your file, m’boy, just looking over Cas’s files. Want to make sure this whole thing is safe and beneficial to the two of you.” Loptr smiles kindly and Dean nods. The doctor curses slightly under his breath and turns to the shrill ring of the intercom speaker on the bottom  of his desk drawer; he presses the button and murmurs something to the nurse that called and then looks up at Dean’s standing form. 

“What are you waiting for? You can go, Dean.” Loptr reminds with a tilt of his head. Dean nods and scampers off while the Doctor looks back at his files.

He flips between the second and third page behind it, notes that he must have replaced the basic information page back in the manila folder and thinks, well huh.

Isn’t that something?

 

* * *

 

Dean sprints through the hallway until he gets to the day room. Each step makes a rustling noise as his thigh flexes beneath the folded page of information. He makes it to his usual seat, gets comfortable and taps on the wall: once, twice, three times. The name, Rem's  _real_ name, droning in his mind, like there's something about it, something at the tip of his tongue... 

“Hey, Rem? You there, man?”

“Hmm, yes, Dean.” Comes the muffed and groggy reply. “What would you like to tell me?”

“Just another nightmare—but check this out,” Dean grins to himself as he pulls out the folded sheet of paper, “I managed to get one of your files—“

“Dean, why would you do that?” Remiel’s panicked voice throws Dean through a loop. “Dean you can’t—you can’t look at that.”

“But I got it from Doc--”

“Dean, if you look at that and remember every possible wall in your mind will come tumbling down. There are repercussions—there’s no telling what will happen. Please, Dean; just… throw it away. Don’t. Read. It.” Rem whispers and Dean's’s hand crumples the paper in a trembling fist.

“Are you afraid I won’t come back to talk to you?” Dean snorts and his hand flattens the still folded paper on his thigh, trying to brush off the creases.

“Not at all It’s just--”

“Listen, Rem, we’re all here for a reason. Hell, I wouldn’t care if you knocked someone out or something.” Dean rolls his eyes, knowing that Remiel won’t even see the motion.

“Dean. Please” and there’s something there, something familiar in the pleading note in Rem’s tone that strikes Dean’s heart and mind. He finds himself opening the paper slowly without conscious consent.

“Why not? You know I won’t judge you.” Dean whispers and his hands are getting clammy, are shaking as they turn the paper over in his hands.

“But it’s worse—you’ll remember everything and there’s nothing—we don’t know what will happen.”

Silence drags on.

“Dean? Dean?!”

But the man is entranced by the paper in his hand.

> Name: Castiel (Malakhi Elohim)

> Admitted: patient shows signs of schizophrenia, religious delusions and visible signs of bodily torture which may have led to further psychosis and psychological trauma.

 

And there, on the upper right hand side of the file was a picture of the man from his dreams, the one with the impossibly sad blue eyes and black wings. His savior. His slayer.

“What is going on?” Dean chokes and Rem, his friend— no, Castiel, _Angel of the Lord_ whispers from across the wall.

“All of this, Dean. I was doing this for you.”


	2. Icarus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of the end.

 

_ 8 _ _And now, my children, hear the discourses of the father of the earth, how fearful and awful it is to come before the face of the ruler of the earth, how much more terrible and awful it is to come before the face of the ruler of heaven, the controller of quick and dead, and of the heavenly troops. Who can endure that endless pain?_

** \--The Book of the Secrets of Enoch; 39: 8 **

Five, seventeen, twenty-six—Dean’s always too young, thinking too old; too mature for his age and too naïve. There’s a hole in his mind that’s always being filled by endless streams of voices; a cacophony of boisterous noises and tendrils of darkness that only temporarily fill the emptiness, the numbness. At five his mother was gone, and his father was always haggard, searching, rough where he was once gentle; his voice would mumble creatures and obscenities where he would once lull to sleep; his hands held guns and blades instead of his own sons.

But the darkness is subsiding. The voices are quitting their cacophony for a sudden vivid and clear stream of consciousness that’s riveting, that’s breaking down walls Dean hadn’t known were built. Suddenly, the beginning is very clear.

It starts with the end—Wings etched onto the floor, bloody lips on his forehead.

It starts with Detroit, and a single “yes”.

It starts with “dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."

It starts at the end: Lawrence, Kansas.

It starts with “take your brother outside as fast as you can - don't look back. Now, Dean! Go!” on November 2, 1983.

There’s a sort of beauty in watching everything come tumbling down. It’s like faint snow in the darkness of forgetting, and each small flake is building up to something big, something phenomenal. He hears the faint drift of a song playing deep in the recesses of his own mind, and lets the cold, numbing snow build up until all he sees is white and all he feels is the life being squeezed out of him.

It’s Gabriel, and he’s in a ring of fire.   _“Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna suck it up, accept your responsibilities, and play the roles that destiny has chosen for you!”_  He’s bitter and tainted; the mark of centuries, an eternity of fratricide and burnt wings has cast him down to earth by choice, and he is detached from humanity. A man without a home.

Dean pities him, almost. The fierce gold eyes look between him and Sam.

 _“Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father.”_ Gabriel’s gaze slicks its way to Sam, “ _And Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was_ ** _always_** _you!”_

(Always loyal to an absent father, the archangel says. Dean thinks of missed calls and empty motel rooms. He thinks of Sam needing clothes and not enough money to buy food for the week. He remembers fifty different school hallways, and always,  _always_  answering dad.)

(He thinks of Sammy storming off to a brighter future, and thinks bitterly of failure to comply. Dad said to take care of Sammy but Sammy just ran off to Stanford.)

“ _…But this is real. And it's gonna end bloody for all of us.”_

(He thinks of Castiel, blown into chunks for five minutes that failed.)

(He thinks of Ellen and Jo, and his mom, and Jess, and everyone he’s ever had to bury or burn.)

 _“…That's just how it's gotta be.”_  Gabriel says.

“I’ve got him” Sam says. The hole to the cage is gaping, void growing larger. Dean watches from the floor, from a half-swollen eye. Bobby is dead. Cas is dead. His own hope is dwindling.

He’s watching through one eye, the other swollen and throbbing in tempo with his racing heart. The void is gaping now, welcoming, and Sam is standing stock-still at the very edge; Dean can see it in his posture, though, the fight Sam is putting up to keep control.

“Sammy,” he tries, croaks for all it’s worth when Sam—(“ _Don’t call me Sammy_ ”)—turns and looks at him with wide, fearful eyes.

“I’m sorry, Dean, so sorry--”

“--Sam--”

“—you failed him, Dean.” Sam says, eyes darkening with malice. But it’s not Sam, it’s  _not Sam_ , it’s Lucifer and he’s using Sam like a meat puppet and  _Sam promised he could take care of it, he_ _promised_.

( _“I have this under control”_  Sam lies. He lied because he’s not fighting and that’s the problem, Dean would live and die for these people he calls his family but they would always fail them,  _ **he**_  would always fail them and they would look at him with such rancor and hatred because it’s  _his_  fault they do this, his fault they end this way— _always too late, always his fault---_ )

“But then again,” Lucifer says, twisting Sam’s lips into a wicked little smirk,” you must be so used to it. To having everyone fall back on you and fail you on the same breadth. Your brother and I, we know this. We’ve seen it; we’ve watched it tear you apart one time, again, a whole lifetime of your shortcomings always leading to this, Dean.” Sam’s hand raises and clenches into a fist, release the tight clench of the fingers to splay them open. Sam grins manically and Dean closes his eyes, awaiting the final hit.

Awaiting his end.

"Sam!" Adam shouts, all pristine perfection.  _Michael,_ Dean thinks bitterly,  _the asshole--_  "It's not going to end this way. Stand back!" He is not poised for an attack but every fiber of his being is screaming aggression. 

"You're going to have to make me," Sam chokes out, lurching forward towards the awning abyss.

"I have to fight my brother, Sam!" Adam shouts,  eyes ablaze. Dean feels--useless. Always so fucking useless, useless to stop Sam, and now Adam. Castiel is a pretty little splatter, and-- _oh god--_  Bobby is staring at them with dead eyes, neck at an awkward angle, watching them fail. "Here and now! It's my destiny!

("You sorry sonsabitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it! Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father. And Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was  _always_  you! As it is in Heaven, so it must be on Earth! One brother has to kill the other." The abscent brother, the Pagan God speaks.)

 But Sam, loyal, brave Sam, he looks at Dean. Dean who, for all intents and purposes, has failed him. Over and over, but Sam looks at him, as if to pull strength from his older brother. His eyes shut, appeased, and Sam opens his arms wide before tipping, falling--

\--Sam's eyes open, dyed in black, and catch the glint of silver sword. On the other end, Adam's eyes go wide. They stay like that for an infinitesimal eternity: Sam, gripping the blade between bleeding palms, holding himself up by the sharp, ancient blade; Adam, eyes wide and alight with holy fervor. 

"Oh,  _brother_ ," Sam grins, "oh, how I've missed your ways."

The abyss seems to grin, too, and the awful gnashing-gnarling of the darkness of hell begins to rise in volume. 

"Lucifer, we both know how this will end!" Adam spits, pulling the blade closer to himself. Lucifer doesn't relent, though, and clings on harder, using the momentum to hoist himself forward. He's basically breathing in Michael's air now, but looks down at the shorter frame.  

"Yes," Sam hisses, features disfigured by genuine rancor," but let's have some fun along the way, shall we  _brother_?"

But Dean looks back, at the trench coat clad figure he had seen die. Castiel, by some miracle, if Dean had still believed in such things as those, is trying to sneak up on them, his sword much smaller but still just as lethal, poised for a strike--

But then the darkness begins to rumble, and the earth itself begins to mend the portal. Sam, as if sensing the fading opportunity, shouts, "NOW! NOW, CASTIEL!" and the angel listens, sword penetrating through Adam's chest into Sam's shoulder. 

This is it, Dean thinks, it's over. Sam is dead, Adam's surprised eyes ingrained into his memory forever. But Sam doesn't begin to spew demonic smoke; no, instead his eyes shift from darkness to human, until the sword is dislodged. "Cas," Sam chokes out, and in a whisper of feathers is gone. Adam struggles, hand lifting to the wound spilling liquid gold and falls to his knees just as the portal closes and the horsemens' rings fall onto the dried grass once more. "Fools," Adam spits, and the grace that spills from his lips leaves fresh grass on the dirt ground. "Fools and imbeciles--see what you have done!" He is ravenous anger.

Heh, Dean thinks,  _righteous_ anger. 

"It is always going to end like this," he spits, blood and grace mingling together now in foul specks on the growing grass. "It's always going to end like this!

Castiel is busying himself by Dean's side, hand reaching to heal the hunter. Dean's watching passively, more dead than alive, and can only cough a croaky, bloody "Cas" as Michael reaches forward with a bloody, shaking hand. Castiel is as surprised when the dying Angel grabs at the sleeve of his coat and hauls the angel closer to himself. 

"Thank you," Michael whispers, and Castiel pales as the Archangel expels himself from the body--nay, corpse, of Adam Milligan. 

Castiel doesn't speak as the young man's body slumps lifeless on the floor, surrounded by fresh grass and still blooming buttercups, gold as the grace that birthed them. Castiel places a shaky hand on Dean's forehead and the hunter is healed, a merciful blessing as Castiel collapses in a heap against him, essencially pinning the hunter against the impala. 

Dean is silent as he carefully dislodges Castiel and moves to retrieve the rings, but to his dulled surprise they are gone as well. Gone, Gone Gone. He hopes vaguely that Cas will be able to revive Bobby, but the angel--if he is still such-- is burning to the touch. He wonders what Michael meant, but can't think of much. IT's as if every thought it bursting the moment it occurs to him, and all that is left is--

(Gabriel is bitter, but remorseful. "I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow. But this is real. And it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be.")

Death. Nothing. Funeral fires that must be made, rytes that need to be upheld. He needs-- a hunt. A new mission. 

Something to keep him sane.

 

Dean had waited until after the embers had died to spread the ashes of his father figure and estranged half brother. Castiel had woken up after the first four hours, delirious and fevered but alive. His companionable silence is welcoming if not strange; he feels, Dean supposes, some sort of lost. Dean doesn’t, he doesn’t really look, alright, because he’s already a few beers in and contemplating Sa- _Lucifer’s_ whereabouts, planning the next hunt.

Castiel says a few words, he thinks, something about Bobby and Adam, about the brevity of life, about how the brightest souls are sometimes extinguished by the malignancy of the world and by the shitty things his family has done.

The last part was probably all Dean. But for then, for now, it’s enough. Castiel eventually tells him, a day later, a week, an lifetime after, that Michael had stolen some of his grace in order to escape Adam’s body and not die with him. Angel blades, Castiel whispers from the back seat, they kill the angels. Not like demons, who are expulsed down to hell, an angel will not survive.

He was not strong enough to bring back Bobby. He doesn’t apologize and Dean doesn’t want him to. But he can tell that it weights on Castiel’s mind constantly, and as they follow signs of destruction and death a sort of truce is made: the guilt and blame, as it is, lies not on them but on the false miracles that give them hope. The belief that things would work out.

Castiel worries that Dean is too reckless, too hasty to head into danger.

“You think,” Dean laughs, “that I’m being too reckless?”

“Yes, Dean, that’s a perfect repetition of my statement in question form.” Castiel deadpans. He’s supporting most of Dean’s weight, trying not to tug on the hasty battle-field stitches on the hunter’s left side. Demons were crawling the interstate, and although they narrowly missed actually maiming the hunter, Dean was lucky to come out as hurt as he did. Castiel had warned him of the hoard but Dean had charged head first and would have, in all probability, been killed by the at least dozen or so demons.

It was the closest they had gotten to Sam since the fateful portal.

“Oh hardy har har,” Dean huffs impatiently, but he can’t even support himself. He knows Castiel knows this as the Angel tries to heft him higher to get a better grip. “Jesus Christ, Cas, I’m not some sack of potatoes I would prefer to not have broken bones—“

“What, on _top_ of stitches along your ribs, that nice cut on your brow, the—“

“ _Christ_ Cas, I’m sorry I’m no _angel_ that I’m,” Dean sputters, rage spiking as they tumble into the motel room, “I’m some _weak human_ —“

“You are anything but weak!” Castiel shouts and Dean is taken aback by the fierceness of his anger. “Angel or human or hunter or not, you are _not_ weak Dean Winchester. You are not some liability, or any other lie you have told yourself so you can feel the weight of the world on your shoulder. You are not a soldier. Not—“

“—Cas, stop—“

“—not some martyr to a cause you don’t believe in! You are the Righteous Man, yes, but you are not a martyr.” Castiel’s weariness softens his voice towards the end, and Dean is slumping against the wall now, so close to the bed. His side burns. His eyes burn, too, and the rock in his throat is close to suffocating him.

“I’m not much of a Righteous Man, Cas.” Dean retorts weakly. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“You would think,” Castiel says, closing the door behind him, “ that somehow trying to save your brother from the likes of mine is no great feat. That somehow defying God’s plan is not a worthy cause, not worth your title but it is yours, Dean.”

“A brother that convinced me to let lil’ Luci out to play—“

“Dean Winchester!” Castiel is storming to the hunter, fury lighting his features. “You act as if I had no part in this! AS if-as if it weren’t my celestial brothers that forced this upon you; had I but any modicum of strength Bobby would be here, Jo, Ellen; Sam!” Castiel is near hysterics. Dean is, well, upset, angry; these are things left unspoken, the ghost in the passenger seat that neither have spoken of. “If I hadn’t stabbed them, thought it would have been simple, Sam would still be here. Or in the cage, along with Michael. Do you not think these things haunt me?”

They do. Dean has seen the glossed look in Castiel’s eyes, daydreaming, thinking of these moments. Haunted.

“But you-you go out and fight like you don’t want to live anymore, like the fight—“

“It’s all I have!” Dean shouts back, irritated. Raw. “It’s all that I have _left_ , can’t you see?” Dean demands, standing toe to toe with Castiel.

“You are more than just the fight!” Castiel shouts and then Dean is there, closer. Breathing in his space. “You have more left in life Dean.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean laughs mirthlessly. “Like what?”

“Hope.” Castiel says, “You even have me—“

Its like fighting, Dean thinks. Kissing Castiel like this, its like another fight, another battle. His side is burning again, and he should worry about the shitty stitching, should have asked Castiel to heal him but god if this isn’t some sort of catharsis, the sore of the battle, the pain of the injury.

It’s like another battle, and Castiel is attacking back, teeth pushing down on Dean’s lower lip, a sharp stab of lust. It’s savage, and Dean—god, he would take his time but he’s so damn angry and so damn tired and this, this is something he can do.

He’s pushing Castiel onto the bed and knows the angel can fight him off at any moment. Its more, Dean knows, like the buildup of some grand thing and he grins at the innuendo of it all; he just hopes, in some logical, reasonable part of his mind, that they make it out of this as close to one piece as they can.

Castiel growls low in his throat when Dean pins him down.

 

 

It’s another three months of this: following omens, hunting down stray demons and angels, this pseudo-sexual relationship, when they meet with a ghost. Gabriel is falling, more than three-quarters of his grace gone, and what’s left is the shell of an angel that’s muggy and losing his luster, losing the only bits of himself he has left.

“I watched the world since the dawn of time,” Gabriel says from lying on the bed. “Earth was my sphere of protection. That’s why I couldn’t fight. How do you fight for the people you’ve made into family against your actual family?” Gabriel gives Dean a knowing look that chills him, fills him with uncertainties. “Has Castiel ever talked about this with you? The pain that goes down the line, whenever an angel is killed. It’s disgusting. It’s painful.” Gabriel’s tone is flat, monotonous; his caramel eyes are piercing, though, so familiar to Castiel’s without the will, without the fight.

Castiel returns from the street, a plastic bag full of diner food dangling from one hand. Dean’s on the couch, flipping through channels and Gabriel is, presumably, sleeping. Castiel doesn’t say a word as he leaves the tray of food beside Dean, but he does make a small sound, almost silent, under his breath when he looks at Gabriel.

“He’s almost human,” Castiel notes. “Wings gone, grace almost vanished. It’s painful, falling from Grace.”

“How painful?” Dean whispers, looking over at Castiel.

“Like someone is taking something from inside of you, and slowly pulling it out, and your flesh begins to burn, and your senses are dulled, mind slowed, muscles corroded. It’s… indescribable, the amount of anguish each day is.” Castiel’s eyes look faraway, slightly pained as he stares at Gabriel.

(And he went through that, Dean thinks. )

( _I thought Angels don’t sleep_  Sam says)

Gabriel sleeps through the night, and Dean is glad. He could never look the archangel into his honey eyes, not for long periods of time without balking at the sheer desolation that stared back.

It’s a cold morning, miles away, when Dean tells Castiel as much, and all the stoic angel replies is with a soft hum and a glance out the window. They drive for eight hours straight before Castiel points Dean to a semi-abandoned city just a few hundred miles away from Chicago. They pull into a vacant motel and as Dean pays for the room-- (three days, please, yes; we’ll need two beds. Any good diners nearby? No, just traveling. On our way home from a concert. Yes, thank you)—Castiel is nowhere to be seen.

“I may not be here tomorrow, or a few days after that,” Castiel pipes up when Dean enters the room. (Of course the angel wouldn’t wait outside, Dean thinks with a huff). Dean feels himself nod minutely and Cas continues. “The minute you feel like you’re being watched you leave, got it?”

“I’m not liking this idea—” Dean starts and feels Cas sigh more than hears it.

“—Dean--”

“But you want to do this. So I’ll try my best to help you” Dean continues and the expression on Cas’s face falls. The man lets out a huff of air that, to anyone else, would be a sad sigh but Dean isn’t anyone else. He’s used to the other’s nuances, his quirks and is too in-tune with the man to not know it’s a sigh of relief. Dean lets himself wander to Castiel, sitting at the edge of the bed so casually. He stoops down, not fighting the urge, and presses a dry kiss against the angel’s chapped lips.

“If push comes to shove, you find Gabriel.” Cas continues against Dean’s lips and the hunter grins.

“Don’t worry, okay? I’ve got this under control.”  Dean leans down once more.

(That night, they use one of the beds. Dean is slow and unhurried, kissing burning paths down Castiel’s chest, licking curves and contours of the miles of skin splayed out beneath him, trembling softly in need. This is different than the other times: where Dean wanted release, something to do with pent-up energy and Castiel took the initiative and volunteered an alternative.)

(The soft sighs and low moans, faint scratches and heated kisses were different from the pounding-forceful war of the flesh that they would wage, so intense it was almost savage. Dean doesn’t want to think too deeply on what it means. They’re on a mission, a hunt, and Sammy is out there being Lucifer’s puppet, and they must be stopped.)

(When the morning comes, and Dean is wrapped tightly behind Castiel, he doesn’t try to analyze anything. He could curl up into some macho-fetal position, but there are bigger fish to fry.)

(He just can’t admit that the pain of losing someone he may just ~~love~~ care about is terrifying.)

Castiel leaves when Dean is in the shower.

Six weeks later Castiel returns looking haggard, worn out but still fighting. Dean breathes a sigh of relief, feels himself relax. It’s Thursday and December is always so cold, always so lonely. They’re sitting together in the kitchen of an abandoned house in Chicago; Dean is eating a small morsel and Cas looking out the window, eyes sad.

“It’s the Full Cold Moon,” Castiel mutters, as if the words will make sense, as if any of this is a lucid reality. “That’s a thing of legends” and Dean doesn’t stop to think about the sad smile on the angel’s thin lips because suddenly there’s a bang in the other room and Cas is getting up, rushing to the other room to fight or maybe disappear forever, just like everyone, just like his family when a slick voice interjects ‘but he is your family’ so strongly it makes Dean pause, makes him hesitate in this empty room.

But he’s never heeded the call. Dean has never listened to that small, meek voice that whimpers “don’t”. Dean pushes open the doors and slips on dark pools of life and Castiel’s on the ground, so serene, so calm and detached from this realm. He’s alone, alone, always alone and there’s a sound, like a pained whimper that couldn’t possibly come from Dean but Castiel isn’t moving and there are wings, so grand and beautiful stretched beneath the cooling corpse, shades of sapphire and emerald shining in the bright moonlight.

Then there’s pain, flaring right in his stomach. It’s intolerable, a fire that’s spreading through Dean’s immobile limbs until everything fades away into the old, familiar numbness.

‘Hello, Dean.’ It says and Dean yells, he falls to his side in a pitiful prayer, in an anguished plea because his head is burning, his entire body is alight with flame and he’s not, he won’t—

He sees the void, and the void looks into him, a swirling mass of darkness that’s beckoning, welcoming Dean into it warm cradle. Somewhere outside of this illusion he hears something, like the sound of beating wings, but he can’t think about it for more than a second, like a passing feeling that something is out of touch.

There’s a man standing across from him, tall and broad-shouldered like a Roman god of war, all jagged edges and heavy, golden armor, wings stretched and poised with pristine gilded feathers dancing with white-hot flames. Dean knows the archangel before the introduction, would remember the defensive stance from any lifetime.

“Your body is dying,” Michael says and his voice is booming across the field of darkness, petrifying and commanding all at once. “And your guards no longer stand by your side. You are hidden from them; I can bring you back to life, but you must hurry and chose quickly.”

“Why?” Dean chokes out, still on his knees with his head bowed.

“Because you are the answer.” Michael repeats and his flinty, spit-fire eyes don’t move from the man’s bowed head. “What say you?”

“It smells like flowers”, Dean thinks impassively, the shrill sound of beeping filling his senses. One-two. One-two. One. One. This next beep elongates, never ends. “Flowers and death.”

“Call it in. Time of death is Thursday, December--”

“I just want to find Sammy.” Dean breathes out and he misses Michaels soft smile as he’s shoved back into consciousness, trapped in a hospital bed by wires and machines. He’s alone and it’s bad, it’s back to the start only he’s hunted and there’s no one, why can’t anyone ever _stay_ —

He finds Gabriel a week later. They meet in an empty parking lot, exchanging heated words.

“It was always meant to be you! Even the prophet knew-- the ending is always the first to be written, to be seen. Can’t you see? It was always mean to be you!” Gabriel shouts and Dean flinches at the power he pulsates. “I’ve seen thousands of my brothers fall to their deaths, be tainted by human folly—your father abandoned his family to pursue revenge, and you would follow his ever beck and call, but you can’t do this? The death of your family isn’t an incentive to fight? Castiel died for you and you can’t fight back?” Gabriel is panting now, tears staining his flushed cheeks.

“Tell me, do their sacrifices mean nothing to you?!” Gabriel barks and Dean swoons, he feels the Other pulling at his mind, grabbing at his consciousness but it’s impossible to tell Gabriel, to warn him. “When will it be enough to make you want to fight back!? When there are no longer any angels left in heaven?” And Gabriel pauses, feels the shift in the air that comes with a holy presence and suddenly everything makes sense.

“Dean, who brought you back?” He chokes out, golden eyes wide in understanding. “Dean,  _who--_ ”

“I’m sorry, brother. Dean is a little… distraught at the moment.” Dean speaks but his voice is lower, harsher.

“Michael,” Gabriel starts, eyes wide, “You--”

“Adam wasn’t enough.” Michael interrupts, “and you are right. We don’t have to watch any more of our brothers and sisters fall. Tonight, I fight for them. I do this for Castiel.” Gabriel pales.

“Michael, what the hell are you going to do?”

“March into battle, brother.  For the sake of our side.” Michael concedes.

“ _God_ , Michael, who’s side  _are you_ ** _on_** _?_ ” Gabriel demands, taking a fearful step back.

Dean feels his lips pull into a manic grin.

“The side of the Righteous.”

 

He finds his brother, in both senses, in their old home in Lawrence, Kansas. It’s ironic, he thinks, or some combination of mocking and despairing; Dean agrees whole heartedly in the metaphysical equivalent of a whimper. The house is already rotting exaggeratingly, some of the floorboards decayed almost to the point of complete rot. Here, nature has begun to reclaim what was once its own.

“I tried,” Sam sobs, huddled into the corner of what was once his room as an infant. “Dean, I tried so hard. Its worse than hell, Dean, _god_ , like… mental torture I couldn’t stop him”

Dean wants to reach out, but all he can do is watch as He approaches Sam, sword ready.

“I am not here for what you could not do, Sam. I am here for what you have done, Lucifer.” Sam looks up, eyes rimmed red.

“Dean?” Sam whispers, struggling to stand. “Dean, no, Michael—“

And Dean screams, and screams, because _its Sam it’s Sam it’s Sam he beat him please there’s another way--!_

**_But there is no other way. The path to hell was paved by the Righteous, Dean. Let us pave it together, in the blood of our brother._ **

 

Dean feels everything that happens to his body, each time his arm moves to swing into a wide arc, feels the splatter of blood that paints his world scarlet. He hears every plea and sees the angels lick their lips as he continues his massacre.

Raphael comes to him, to Michael, in the home of a family he just butchered. Michael has no time to listen to his brother, only perks up when Raphael lets slip that the war in heaven has become tainted by sangre sancti, holy blood. Raphael falls to his knees, confesses his sin, the murder of his kin.

Michael places steady hands on either side of his brother’s head and kisses his forehead.

The death of an angel is a thing of beauty, a moment of creation.

The death of an arch angel is the shattering of worlds.

Michael’s solo march continues. Many brothers and sisters approach him, look to be relieved of their sin and he slays them.

The righteous have no business being tainted.

Gabriel approaches him three times, each time to beg for the release of Dean.

“Michael” Gabriel whispers and Dean shivers in his little corner of his mind. “Please, what is righteous about your march? You slay our kind just as you massacre mankind—return the vessel. Let him mourn in peace!”

“I’m sorry, little brother, but there is much work to be done. This is not over”

“It was over when you vanquished Lucifer!” Gabriel shrieks, all shrill-voiced pallor.

But Michael is gone in a flurry of anger and feathers.

 

A year passes.

Michael sits alone on a hill overlooking the mass grave. In his hands he thumbs a worn out notebook, spine gnarled, pages torn. A pen scratches out new words, final musings and information that must be written into this relic. John’s intent is no longer of import. The book is nearly done. Home awaits, it summons like a beacon at the back of his mind. There’s the crunching of the earth beneath feet as steps draw nearer.

“Dean,” a voice chokes out, “why..?”

“I thought you were dead,” Dean whispers. “They said—” And it’s Dean, he’s in control of his mind, Michael stunned into submission but it’s waning, this control. “I can’t—so many, so many dead.” Dean’s body won’t respond, won’t turn to look at his slayer.

“You have to fight him!” The Slayer shouts, feet crunching the hard gravel with each step closer.

“And you have lost the right to speak to me! YOU ARE DEAD!” Dean shouts and his eyes clam shut. His body, he can feel it moving, standing, turning. He’s not in control. Never in control.

“Fight, please, you promised--” Dean opens his eyes and stares into sad blue eyes.

“C-Cas…Castiel?” Dean whispers.

“Dean!” Castiel shouts, recognition lighting his features.

“Kill… me.” Dean mouths. Castiel pauses mid-reach. “I’ve lost the fight. I’ve killed. Kill me, or he’ll take over and kill you,” Dean continues in a low, urgent voice.

 “This is something you cannot ask of me!” Castiel bites back and Dean has to take a deep breath because Michael is furious and Dean can’t fight back.

 “KILL ME!” Dean shouts and it’s out of his control now as Michael slips back into control, hand on his silver sword, ready to maim, ready to kill. They’re battling for something more than this, though, more than just humanity. Dean’s trying to will himself back to power but it’s impossible and he can only watch as his body jabs and swings at his  ~~love~~  friend and companion in fear that he’ll bear witness to another death, another pair of wings burnt into the ground.

“I did it all for you,” Michael says with Dean’s borrowed voice, a sense of vicious satisfaction blooming as Castiel hesitates to attack. “All of this for you. Are you proud of me? Glad?” Castiel cries out as Michael plunges his sword into the angel’s shoulder. Michael continues his onslaught, pulling the blade out, kicking the other to the ground until Castiel is pinned under his weight, chest to the ground.

“Goodbye,” Michael says and it’s choked out. “Defection to humanity is far worse a punishment than death.” Michael whispers as he slowly pulls his hands along Castiel’s back. Out of the thin air black wings begin to materialize, raven wings spanning twenty feet from tip to tip. Castiel flinches and struggles harder.

“Actually, there is something much worse than death and humanity, Brother.” Michael states as his hands clench the base of either wing.

“And what is that?” Castiel huffs out, voice laced with agony.

“The painful fall from grace.” Michael hisses as he shoves Cas harder into the soft soil.

\-- And he’s pulling the wings, watching them sizzle and burn as bones snap and flesh begins to stretch taut, tearing. The angel roars out in anguish as his essence, his grace is torn from his body and burnt into the ground, into empty silhouette.

“Today you are driven from the land, and will be hidden from all presence; you will be a restless wanderer on the earth” Michael whispers as his hands begin to heal over, as the lands continue to cry out. His vision blurs and Michael huffs out a pained gasp as his body falls, as his control slips. Dean’s body falls limp besides Castiel’s, pale and shivering.

“I give to you this crown of thorns,” Castiel pants, eyes shut tightly as blood runs freely down his back, onto the dirt in darkened pools. “And toast to you this stale bread as we drink this bloody wine. The wall in your mind grows stronger, and with this… I mark you… as redemption and damnation.” Castiel moves slowly, the insuperable pain forcing him to move sluggishly. With a final jerk of his head he lays his lips on Dean’s sweaty, grimy forehead and falls back once more.

“For I am Castiel, angel of the Lord, torn from the heavens and marked with the symbol of the fallen son. None shall kill you, for the Lord has marked you as the first-born killer of his kin.” Castiel pauses, hears a flutter of wings and winces at the low, pained groan from somewhere around him. He doesn’t move though, or can’t, he’s not too sure; instead he lays his palm flat on Dean’s grimy, sweaty cheek and closes his eyes.

“Cas you idiot,” Gabriel whispers. “You knew it would always come to this. It would always end like this.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE HAD THIS CHAPTER READY HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE ON MY LAPTOP. i LOOKED FOR IT FOR SO LONG AND AO3 KEPT IT FOR ME I AM SO SORRY.
> 
> UNIVERSITY, MAN. IT'S STRESSING. 
> 
> also this is super unbeta'd so sorry for any and all mistakes


	3. Phoenix Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "23I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; And to the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, And all the hills moved to and fro. 25 I looked, and behold, there was no man, And all the birds of the heavens had fled. 26 I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness, And all its cities were pulled down Before the Lord, before His fierce anger.  
> 27 For thus says the LORD, "The whole land shall be a desolation, Yet I will not execute a complete destruction. 28 "For this the earth shall mourn And the heavens above be dark, Because I have spoken, I have purposed, And I will not change My mind, nor will I turn from it."  
> -Jeremiah 4:23-28

> _ 15 _ _The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?_
> 
> \--Revelation, 6: 15

**Part III  
Phoenix Wings**

It is dusk when Dean awakes, and he feels like he’s finally awoken, like he’s finally here, one with his body and mind. The hospital is eerily silent when he finally moves and he stays sitting on the edge of his bed, legs dangling off the side of the hard mattress. His eyes scan the room for the final time, like he’s never looked at these blank walls before, as if this room is not familiar to him after so many months.

But it isn’t the same, nothing is the same because _Dean_ isn’t the same and he can feel it in the blood running hotly through his veins, in the rush of energy pulsing just beneath his fingertips. Dean rises and takes the notebook off the nightstand, wanders out the room and into the barely lit hallway.

He knows the way without thinking, body moving on autopilot and Dean simply stares at the notebook in his hands. With the newfound knowledge of his purpose Dean knows he won’t be able to let go of this glorious burden. He pauses; there’s only a flimsy metal door separating him from his goal, from his destiny. Without a second thought Dean grabs the knob, intent on pulling the door from its hinges when—

It opens; the handle simply clicks downwards and the portal is enabled, a gaping void of nothingness that’s filling with soft orange light from the hallway, from the sun. There, across the doorway is the low cot and a body tangled in the sheets, back to Dean and Dean must see, he has to see, take one final look—

“Castiel, show me your back.” Dean whispers and the form on the bed stiffens. “Cas. I need to-I have to. Please.” Dean chokes out and the figure on the bed moves fluidly, goes from lying to sitting and finally standing. Castiel walks forward until he’s before Dean and it’s strange, it’s too strange to think of how he’s known this person for a week, for five years, for a thousand years but those aren’t memories for Dean to treasure, to hold. All Dean has are these memories, though, so he will cling to them.

Dean never claimed to be a strong man.

Castiel remains silent as Dean stares at him, at the hospital scrubs covering the lithe body, observes the slight height difference, follows the oath of each shimmering curl but avoids those pristine azure eyes. Castiel breaks the trance as he moves his arms and raises his shirt and slowly turns his back.

The scars are still puckered and raw with flaked blood, jagged and gruesome. They break the skin from the upper curve of shoulder blades down, reaching below the elastic band of the uniform pants. They’re angry red welts that throb and pulse in agony, white clumps of bone and small, downy tufts of raven plumage that stick to the wounds like an infection.

A hand traces the left scar from top to the hemline of the pants, eliciting a shudder from the angel beneath Dean’s touch.

“What is this place?” Dean whispers, dazed. His voice is soft in the silence, in fear of shattering the moment, of breaking the spell in this room. This, whatever this heaviness can be labeled, is holding them there, suspended in the murky shadows of the almost-dawn.

It’s guilt, Dean realizes as his fingers lift just above the scar, far enough to escape the harsh scrape of scabbed blood and bone fragments but close enough to feel the unnatural heat radiating from the puckered flesh.

“It’s a hospital, in one sense,” Castiel replies, voice heavy, laden with something Dean hasn’t heard in so long and can’t quite place. “It was made for people like you and I.”

“Angels?” Dean interjects, hovering; waiting.

“No.” Castiel bites out and pauses, recollecting himself. “Prisoners of war. Survivors.”

“Survivors?” Dean repeats, incredulous. Castiel’s body shudders.

“What… what do you remember?” Castiel asks and Dean hesitates, hand hovering above the second scar. Instead, Dean’s hand lays flat against the knobs of Rem’s spine between his shoulder blades.

“Everything.” Dean breathes out. “I remember everything.”

 

The morning comes too soon, but Dean hasn’t let go of Castiel for the hours in between his confession and the opening of the door. They’re sitting side by side on the cold floor when the door simply opens, no one there to give a reason, no one there to explain because Dean knows.

It’s time.

He rouses Castiel from his slumber and the two rise together and start towards the door. The hallways are empty and Dean will never be used to this silence, he knows, he will never grow accustomed to the nothingness in his mind.

In a few moments they will make it to the front doors and they will walk out into this strange new world. They will open the doors to crumbling destruction, to death and debris.

They open the doors.

There are ashes falling from the sky like putrid, rancid snow. The once clean air is tainted with the foul stench of burnt _everything_ , bodies, bones and buildings. Everything is falling apart around them like a fragile glass ceiling with too many nicks and cracks where it has gone to the point of no return; the small shards are jagged and sharp and they each fall at the pin-drop of the pinnacle of each incident and explosion; each laceration, each gash in their exposed flesh is the price paid for each casualty for they are bare to the pain of the world.

It’s a beautiful Armageddon.

The skies are lit with fire in the darkness of the night, a fiery scarlet like a streak of blood smeared across the onyx abyss. There’s a faint veil of gray there, like smoke, or maybe it’s the haunted and mourning specters of the innocents that have perished thus far into this ailing nation and they’re there, crying in the night, looking for a brief respite or just hoping to be exercised, looking for a way to be saved after it was too late.

The two walk out into the destruction and the building behind them remains a silent sentinel to the annihilation of civilization. They are separated by a gulf of memories, by a sea of blood; they are bound by their newfound mortality, by the scars upon Castiel’s back and the blood upon Dean’s palms, by the memory of raven wings and holy wrath.

“You are human, now.” Dean says softly to his companion, the words dying in the polluted air. “You are flawed perfection. You are my savior, my damnation,” he moves to keep their hands clasped, calloused finger rubbing over the spackled scars on the other’s hand, “so perfect. So broken. A shattered disillusion.” Dean pauses, looks at Castiel’s intense gaze and motions at the land with a wide sweep of his arm.

“You and I, together, we will redesign this world into a new paradise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It literally took me 3 years to update I hate myself and I am so, so sorry

**Author's Note:**

> OK Some quick notes:  
> -Style: insanity is hard to type, so I'm a little sorry, but I am just generally abusive of italics on a normal basis so...
> 
>  
> 
> **Names**
> 
>  
> 
>  **Akem Manah** : name means “manah made evil”; in this case, the word “manah” represents “the mind”. Many refer to him as the demon of “evil intention”, “evil mind”, “evil purpose”, or “evil thinking”
> 
>  
> 
>  **Remiel** : is one of the archangels of the Christian and Islamic traditions, the Hebrew name meaning "Mercy of God" or "Compassion of God"
> 
>  
> 
>  **Loptr** : Is Loki. Just another written version of Loki
> 
>  
> 
> also, if you want some random fandom crap, or follow me as I flail over the next chapter or just FEELS in general [here's my Tumblr](deusabinitio.tumblr.com)


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